FIRST CRUISE OF THE "BASILISK" 353 



The Commander's narrative l is full of interest and brings 

 ' vividly before the eye of the reader not only the progress accom- 

 plished in the twelve years which had elapsed since the separation 

 of Queensland from New South Wales, but also some of the abuses 

 which had followed the scramble for wealth in a little-known sea 

 far from the seat of government. 



The cruiser left SYDNEY on I5th and BRISBANE on 28th January, 

 1871, taking on board at the latter port horses and stores for 

 Somerset, and following the " inner route," which had already 

 been charted by Captains Owen Stanley and Francis Blackwood 

 and others. (SEE MAP O.) 



The " Basilisk's " work began at the base of the Cape York 

 Peninsula. Thirty miles from Cardwell, and therefore about the 

 PALM ISLANDS, a small fore-and-aft schooner was met, apparently 

 in a helpless condition, and was boarded. She proved to be the 

 " Peri" and there was neither food nor water on board, and no 

 boat. The crew, of Solomon Islanders, were " living skeletons, 

 creatures dazed with fear and mortal weakness. . . . Some were 

 barely alive, and the sleeping figures were dead bodies, fast losing 

 the shape of humanity, on a deck foul with blood." The first 

 thing that had to be done was to bury six bodies. 



" The story of the ' Peri? " says Moresby (p. 5), " proved to be this : A noted 

 kidnapping vessel, the * Nukalow? had brought a cargo of some 180 kidnapped natives 

 to Rewa River, Fiji, some two months previous to our falling in with the ' Peri. 1 

 At Rewa they were disposed of by being hired out to planters at the rate of ten to 

 fifteen pounds a head, paid to the owners of the ' NukalowJ and about eighty of them 

 were transferred to the ' Peri ' for conveyance to the various islands of the Fiji 

 group, in charge of three white men and a Fijian crew. On getting to sea, insufficient 

 food was served to the natives, who were quite unsecured, and they clamoured for 

 more, on which some rice was issued ; but one of the white men, angered by the clamour 

 for food, was heartless enough to throw the rice overboard as the natives were cooking 

 it, and the maddened creatures rose at once and threw him over after the rice. The 

 other two whites and the Fijians followed ; and the savages, thus left to themselves, 

 and wholly unable to manage the ship, drifted helpless and starving before the south- 

 east trade wind for about five weeks, accomplishing a distance of nearly 1,800 miles 

 through a sea infested with coral reefs and full of islands ; finally passing over a 

 submerged part of the Barrier Reef, or through one of its narrow openings, to the 

 place where the * Basilisk ' found them. Thirteen only were then alive out of the 

 eighty natives who had sailed from Rewa. We took these survivors to Cardwell, 

 30 miles distant, which was then, excepting Cape York, the most northeily point 

 of Queensland, and here, under the humane care of Mr. Brinsley Sheridan, the Police 

 Magistrate, they recovered strength in time, and were afterwards taken by us to 

 Sydney, whence they were carried by one of H.M. ships to their various islands in the 

 Solomon group." 



It will be remembered that in 1848, KENNEDY, who landed at 

 Tarn O' Shanter Point, opposite Dunk Island, had been unable to 



i Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea and the D' Entrecasteaux Islands, A Cruise 

 in Polynesia and Visits to the Pearl-shelling Stations in Torres Straits, of H.M.S. 

 " Basilisk." By Captain John Moresby, R.N. London, 1876. 



Two Admirals Admiral of the Fleet Sir Fairfax Moresby (1786-1877) and His 

 Son John Moresby. By Admiral John Moresby. London, John Murray, 1909. 



123 



